"Every time I checked my Twitter feed the number of shootings would go up," Sanders said.

He said as a prosecutor he shuddered at the increased case load that would result from the arrest, and as a resident of Greater Cincinnati he worried about the harm the shootings would cause to Cincinnati's reputation.

"Wondering if I can stay awake long enough to see the count get to an even dozen...," he wrote in reaction to a news article.

He later deleted the tweet.

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Screen capture of a deleted tweet.(Photo: The Enquirer)

"Some people misconstrued what I said as me joking or finding the number of shootings funny, which is very far from the truth," Sanders said. "It was astonishment and shock because Cincinnati is normally a very safe place to live and visit, but yesterday's Twitter feed Cincinnati sound more like Chicago."

Sanders explained that while the violence affects the whole region, he doesn't believe Northern Kentucky will see a similar spike in gun violence.

"Sometimes the river is a lot wider than folks realize. We're very fortunate that rarely does the violence that occurs in Cincinnati cross over to the south bank of the river," Sanders said. "So that's fortunate, but at the same time, the greater good for everybody in the Greater Cincinnati area is negatively impacted whenever violent crime like this takes place."

He said that Twitter feeds and news filled with stories of stories of shootings and homicides portray the urban core of Cincinnati as a violent place, and that this keeps people from visiting and taking advantage of all that Cincinnati has to offer.

"It's not healthy for Cincinnati, it's not healthy for Covington," Sanders said.

Sanders is one of the more prolific users of Twitter when compared to other Tristate elected officials. Since joining in 2009, Sanders has posted more than 13,500 tweets.